July Car Sales Rise Year-over-Year; Slide Compared with June Sales

Here are the numbers as reported by the carmakers so far today:

• Chrysler Group LLC down 10.6% month-over-month, and up 11% from July 2012
• Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) down nearly 18% month-over-month, and also up 11% year-over-year
• General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM) down 11.7% month-over-month, and up 16% from July 2012
• Nissan up 4.6% month-over-month, and up 11% from July 2012
• XXToyota Motor Co. (NYSE: TM) up 16.5% year-over-year
• Volkswagen down 3.1% month-over-month and down 3.3% year over year

Chrysler Group’s month-over-month drop was much worse than the expected drop of 3.2%. Car sales were down by more than 12,000 in the month and truck sales were off by more than 4,000.

Ford’s month-over-month drop was also worse than expected, as sales of cars fell by nearly 18,000 vehicles. Truck sales were also down by about 12,000 units.

GM’s month-over-month drop was much worse than the expected decline of 6.6% and the year-over-year increase was smaller than the expected rise of 19.3%. Total sales fell by more than 30,000 units.

Hyundai/Kia has not reported sales numbers for July yet. Analysts estimates call for a 3.5% month-over-month drop and a rise 7.2% year-over-year.

Honda Motor Co. Ltd. (NYSE: HMC) does not report sales until after markets close. Projections call for sales to be down 0.9% month-over-month and up 13.7% year-over-year.

Nissan’s month-over-month increase was much better than the expected decline of 2.5% and the year-over-year increase was smaller than the expected rise of 14.9%.

Toyota has not published details on July sales yet, but analysts expect a 2.1% decline month-over-month. The year-over-year sales increase that Toyota has published is essentially equal to the expected 17% increase.

Volkswagen’s month-over-month drop was higher than the 1.8% expected and the year-over-year sales decline was much worse than the expected 7.3% increase.

U.S. new car sales fell to 10.4 million in 2009 but have climbed back on the strength of double digit increases in each of the past three years. The expected total sales increase in 2013 is 8.3%, still strong, but not on the same order as the past few years.